I was able to get out in the garage for only a few hours yesterday. Work continued on the doors and drawer fronts.
It was really good to have extras from the parts camper, especially on some of the longer plastic edge pieces that had been heat warped or where cracks and breaks had occurred near hinge mountings or other hardware locations.
I had planned to remove just the looser plastic framing pieces and simply finish around those that are tighter and firmly assembled - and I still may. But toward the end of the day yesterday I was kind of developing the skill and knowledge on how to fairly easily remove even the tighter pieces. That would greatly speed up and aid the finishing process - if I can get the trim edges right out of the way. And that would give me an opportunity to re-glue each piece and fasten tight corners on each joint as well.
So today I will re-examine the boards in this stack and make a decision on how best to work them.
This is my work area. Note how I am sanding with the long edges still in place. Later, I actually removed the long edge pieces and completed the sanding, front and back.
Another staging, these were ready for a fine sanding and then finish. It was about here that I regrouped and decided to remove the longer edge pieces.
The key was to use a thin putty knife under the edge of the plastic, separating the wood surface from the plastic lip, more or less loosening or breaking the glue joint between the two, which is mostly minor.
I think re-gluing those edges (plastic channels against the edge of the wood or even a bit around to the back side of the wood paneling pieces), will be a much better result - and of original design - than simply depending on the metal corners to hold things tight. I expect just using the metal corners to keep corners aligned is the best answer, and use a little bit of well placed glue to actually do the holding.
Here's another look at the trim profile. Note two channels for the wood paneling edge, and another channel for the metal (or plastic) corner retainers. Incidentally, the parts camper was a 1966 (using plastic corners) and Lil' Queeny is a 1968 (using metal corners). I believe this style was widely used among manufacturers of the time.
While working on these doors, I decided to go ahead now and make a door for the little opening I added below the shower, on the right side (toward the camper rear). This is the opening where I'll access the grey water dump valve from the camper interior.
The opening is the same standard height as a good many of the drawers and doors, so the donor pieces were already the correct height, both the plastic frame pieces and the wood door itself. What needed re-sizing (narrowing) was the width.
I disassembled the small donor drawer front and got these pieces out of the deal.
Calculating the needed width of the framing (1/4" less than the opening), I marked 3 1/8" on the two frame pieces to cut (see above). Then over at the table saw, cut the 45 degree angle in the appropriate location.
Making another calculation, I cut the wood pieces down to the correct size, cutting out the previous hardware mounting holes and choosing the wood in between.
Here are the pieces I ended up with.
Then I glued and pressed the wood pieces together, verified proper alignment, clamped and set aside to dry.
I think today will see either the rest of the doors taken apart for sanding, finish, re-assembly - or final decision to leave those as is and finish as such. Either way I expect the sanding will be completed, stain applied, and likely a first coat of poly.
